Category Archives: philosophy

Flourish by Martin Seligman: book summaryFlourish, the new book by Martin Seligman (full title: “Flourish – A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being“) starts with a big committment: “This book will help you flourish.” And ends (spoiler!) with a challenging goal, PERMA 51: the commitment to facilitate flourishing in 51% of the people of the world by year 2051. In between, you get an inspiring overview of what Positive Psychology has accomplished, and how.

Flourish is Martin Seligman’s first book in ten years. Previously, the goal of psychology has been to relieve human suffering, but the goal of the Positive Psychology movement, initiated by Dr. Martin Seligman fifteen years ago, is about raising the bar for the human condition. In Flourish, Martin Seligman refines the scope of Positive Psychology: happiness alone doesn’t give life meaning. In this book, well-being takes the leading role, and Happiness is described as one of the five pillars of Positive Psychology.

In Flourish, Martin Seligman addresses what enables us to cultivate talents, to build deep, lasting relationships with others, to feel pleasure, and to contribute meaningfully to the world. In a word, what allows us to flourish, which he summarizes it with PERMA:
– Positive Emotion
– Engagement
– Relationships
– Meaning
– Accomplishment

According to Martin Seligman’s research, these are the permanent building blocks for a life of profound fulfillment.

Flourish by Martin Seligman: book reviews
“It would be unfair not to praise some of the good work Seligman highlights in Flourish. He draws attention to poor evidence for the benefits of psychiatric drugs and also suggests some behavioural changes and strategies that, if used wisely, can be very helpful, such as learning to respond more actively and constructively to what friends, family and colleagues say”.Julian Baggini on The Financial Times

His writing reflects his brilliance in clear and understandable terms. Martin Seligman continues to have a powerful, positive effect on individuals and societies, and I believe that Flourish will have a powerful, positive effect on you.Christine Duvivier on PositivePsychologyNews.com

Flourish by Martin Seligman: praise
“Brilliant, beautiful, useful, and true. How many books can you say that about? Well, you can say it for sure about Flourish. Written by a master of research as well as a thoroughly joyful man, Flourish will allow you to flourish if you simply read the book and follow its sane, sage, ground-breaking advice”.
— Edward Hallowell, M.D., author of Shine: Using Brain Science to Bring the Best from Your People

“If you liked Authentic Happiness, you will like Flourish ten times more. This book is bound to be not only a source of knowledge, but a fount of inspiration.”
— Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

More praise for Flourish by Martin Seligman can be found on: http://books.simonandschuster.com/Flourish/Martin-E-P-Seligman/9781439190753

Flourish by Martin Seligman: book reviews
In his new book, he sets out to expand the concepts outlined in his 2002 book Authentic Happiness. The earlier book described happiness as a combination of positive emotions, “flow,” and meaning. In his new book, Seligman adds two more elements he considers critical: accomplishment and personal relationships. Together, these elements add up to well-being. Mix in some some self-esteem, resilience, and optimism, and you get flourishing.
— Dennis Whittle, Huffingtonpost.com

More book reviews for Flourish by Martin Seligman can be found on: http://books.simonandschuster.com/Flourish/Martin-E-P-Seligman/9781439190753

Flourish by Martin Seligman: book covers and Martin Seligman pictures

Flourish: interview with Martin SeligmanMaia Szalavitz: You are one of the founders of “positive psychology” and yet you say in your new book that focusing solely on the positive emotion of happiness as a foundation for a good life isn’t enough. What do you mean?

Martin Seligman: Happiness or subjective well-being is just one of the ends we want in life. We asked the question, “What else do we choose to do, what else north of indifference is there, for people who are free, that they might do for its own sake?”

I argue that happiness is only one of five [free motivations]: we also do things for meaning and purpose, even if that brings no happiness. I’ve met people who said that Mother Teresa was a miserable cuss — she did her work even if it brought no smiles and satisfaction.

Another [motivation] is engagement — that’s the [experience] of being totally engaged in what you’re doing, which blocks out all other feeling and thinking. We also want relationships, even if they bring none of the other experiences. And, finally kicking and screaming, I got dragged into [accepting that the last one] is winning or accomplishment.

[We abbreviate it as PERMA.] P is positive emotion, E is engagement, R is relationships, M is meaning and A is accomplishment. Those are the five elements of what free people chose to do. Pretty much everything else is in service of one of or more of these goals. That’s the human dashboard.

Maia Szalavitz: So what can we do to get more PERMA?

Martin Seligman: If you have people recognize the catastrophic thoughts that [arise] when they encounter a situation they don’t like, and [give them ways to] realistically argue against them, you can systematically move pessimism into optimism. With long-term follow-up, we see that doing so prevents depression.

It’s very much like cognitive therapy. I think the mechanism of action seems to be changing hopelessness into hope, teaching people to recognize their most catastrophic thoughts and realistically argue against them.

If you have people every night write down three things that went well that day [and examine why], six months later people have [more happiness and less depression].

On the relationship side, if you teach people to respond actively and constructively when someone they care about has a victory, it increases love and friendship and decreases the probability of depression.

If your spouse comes home and she has been promoted, it’s a bad idea to say, “You know what tax bracket that will put us into?” as opposed to, “Let’s relive it! What did your boss say and why do you think you got the promotion?”

There are now about 12 to 18 exercises in the PERMA literature that are documented to increase [flourishing]. It’s important that you actually do these exercises, [rather than just think about doing them]. Some of the exercises are cognitive, like thinking about three things that went well today. Others are more about doing, things like actually making a “gratitude visit” [seeking out and thanking people for what they’ve done in your life] or being active and constructive with people you love. It’s not just head stuff, it’s also action.

Dan Gottlieb gives an inspiring opinion about the pursuit of happiness:

“The U.S. Declaration of Independence gives us the right to pursue happiness. That’s all well and good, but are we finding that the pursuit of happiness can make us miserable?

In today’s culture more people are pursuing happiness and not succeeding, leaving them frustrated and living with a sense of failure. Making matters worse, the pursuit of happiness can make us self-absorbed, which is guaranteed to make us unhappy!

Even though we have the right to pursue happiness, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Most of us don’t know how to achieve happiness. We think if we have enough wealth, we will be happy, but that doesn’t work. We think if our children are successful, we will be happy, so we push them to be successful and then everyone is unhappy.”

There is a lot of wisdom in these few sentences: the craving for happiness is leading to an even MEaner society. The answer is not in chasing happiness, it is in living happily. Thanks to Dan for his article, which you can read on http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-gottlieb-phd/is-happiness-necessary_b_770560.html